My Fast and Favorite French Bread

This easy French bread recipe can be enjoyed with a big slab of butter two hours from the time you decide to make it.  The recipe comes from Chef In Training.    At the bottom of these wonder oven instructions are ingredients and instructions straight from Nikki's website.

To modify this for the wonder oven, just follow the basic directions used for other wonder oven recipes.  Mix the dough, and when it's time to form it into loaves, just grease the pot or can you're using, and put a ball of dough inside.  Make sure the dough only comes about one-third of the way, because you'll allow it to rise before you start to cook it, and then it will rise a bit more.

1.  Put the dough in the greased pan
2.  Cover with parchment paper, and/or aluminum foil if you prefer
3.  Put a rubber band around the neck of the pot to keep the paper/foil secure.  You don't want condensation dripping onto your bread.
4.  Set the bread pot into a bigger stock pot.

Photo by myfoodstoragecookbook.com

5.  Fill extra cans or jars with water and set them inside the pot, too.  This will keep the bread pot from falling on its side when the water starts to boil.

6.  Put enough water in the stock pot to fill about half way.  You don't want so much that the water will boil up to the top of your bread pan.
7.  Put the pot on the stove and turn on the heat.
8.  Put the lid on the top and DO NOT TAKE IT OFF!
9.  Once you hear it start to boil, set the timer for 15 minutes.
10.  After 15 minutes, lift the pot from the stove and nestle it in your wonder oven.  Pull the sides of the oven up around the pot so that fabric and beads are touching the entire surface.
11.  Put the top piece of the wonder oven on the top and press it down, too.
12.  If you have your wonder oven in a tub, which I highly recommend, partly for the safety issue, snap the lid on the top, too.  If your lid won't fit on the top, you might want to just add something heavy to the top. A couple of books will do.  What you're doing is just making sure that top is keeping contact with your pot lid.

Now, the fun part.  Go about your day.  In 3-4 hours, check your bread.  Remember that this pot is still going to be HOT, so you'll want to use oven gloves.

It's great to know that you can bake bread without heating up the kitchen, but also nice to know you have options if you don't have electricity (as long as you have another option for 15 minutes of heating the water).

My grandkids love it because it's crustless.  No more wasting the crust!

Photo:  Sherida Radigan @
My Year of Living on Food Storage

Thank you, Chef In Training for this wonderful and easy recipe.

French Bread

Ingredients

• 7 cups flour, divided
• 3 cups warm water
• ⅓ cup sugar
• 2 tsp. salt
• 1½ packages yeast

Instructions

1. Mix 3 and ½ cups flour with all ingredients. Let sit one hour.
2. Add remaining 3 and ½ cups flour (one at a time) and knead till dough forms a ball (dough sticky).
3. Cover with a damp cloth for 30 minutes.
4. Divide and shape into 2-3 oblong loaves (long and narrow). Place on greased cookie sheet. Slit top with scissors ½ down diagonally.
5. Paint top with slightly beaten egg whites. Let sit for 8-10 minutes.
6. Bake at 375 degrees F for about 30 minutes.

Recipe by Chef in Training at https://www.chef-in-training.com/2012/05/french-bread/

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